Lot 346
Brown, J.H.
Rare Books, Maps, Manuscripts & Photographs
Auction: 16 January 2013 at 10:00 GMT
Description
Spectropia, or surprising spectral illustrations showing ghosts everywhere and of any colour. London: Griffith & Farran, 1864. First edition, 4to, 16 hand-coloured illustrations designed to create optical illusions of ghosts, original cloth-backed pictorial boards
Footnote
Provenance: Property of the Trustees of Lord Gretton
Note: J.H. Brown was so shocked by growing public interest in spiritualism, a "mental epidemic" as he called it, that in the second half of the nineteenth century he published Spectropia. The book's aim was to demonstrate, "...some of the many ways in which our senses may be deceived, and that, in fact, no so-called ghost has ever appeared, without it being referable either to mental or psychological deception..." The book requires the reader to stare at an image for 15 to 30 seconds before looking at a surface in a darkened room. The image should be projected onto this surface, having been retained briefly in the visual cortex of the reader's brain. Later, in 1912, Max Wertheimer would scientifically prove the existence of this kind of optical illusion, naming it the 'Phi Phenomenon'.